Blokus â„¢

Blokus is one of those board games that are simple in concept but extremely challenging to master. In the game, you start with 21 Tetris-like blocks of different shapes. Each turn you must place a block down so that your corners, but no sides, are touching. Gameloft’s version is all a Blokus fan could possibly want, with online multiplayer as well as a single player campaign.

The goal is to rack up as many points as possible (one for each block, plus extras for placing down all your blocks and using the one-tile block last). The basic strategy is to block your opponents from making moves, place down your big tiles first, and move to the center quickly. A great tutorial is available in the game to walk you through everything.

There’s gotta be a Tetris in there somewhere.

This version of Blokus includes varieties from both Blokus Classic and Blokus Duo. In Classic, there are four colors and each start from their respective corners. You can play against three opponents, team up with another player, or play one-on-one, where you each control two colors. Duo is a little different. As the name suggests, this is a two-player game where both start from the center on a smaller board.

Gameloft did a great job with the single-player mode. There is a tournament mode where you play preset levels and must accomplish a certain objective, such get a certain number of points or completely block off another color. Quick play is also available, where you can customize a game on the fly.

I blocked your blocks, blockhead.

Multiplayer is where Blokus really shines, however. You can play over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi with friends, but we preferred to take our block-placing skills online. We never had any problems connecting, which has been an issue in the past with online multiplayer in Gameloft titles. The one thing missing is a hotseat multiplayer, but this isn’t a huge deal with so many other options available.

We’ve had a lot of fun with Blokus and hope other variations of the game are coming soon. We’d also love to see the game native on the iPad since it would fit perfectly, but this version works fine pixel-doubled. For less than it costs to buy just one version of the physical game, buying this one is a no-brainer.

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The fine folks at Milkbag games have released Sidewords. A fun little diversion of a word game that is the devil child of crosswords and scrabble. For each level in the game the grid must be completed to win the level — this means that each letter at the top and side must be used. And not just the top or side, but each word must be made up of letters from the top and side to create a grid. It’s a pain, but in the right kind of way. Even the simplest of the levels can be a head scratcher until you get used to the game. Well worth the $3 as a diversion while we wait for Milkbag to finally release Snow Siege.

We’d like to thank our sponsor for this week, Zap Zap Kindergarten Math.

It’s not always easy to tear your kids away from their tablets and make them do something edifying. Thankfully, Zap Zap Kindergarten Math relieves you of this task by turning mathematics into a fun touchscreen video game. Win win!

Aimed at children 3-6 years old, the app makes math fun by ‘gamifying’ it, turning simple mathematics problems into little challenges so that your pre-schooler can learn and play at the same time.

There are more than two dozen mini-games, split across three categories: Numbers, Shapes and Measurements, and Add and Subtract. According to the developer the difficulty of these puzzles is adaptive too, so kids of any ability can be both encouraged and challenged.

Mini Dayz has launched and it’s a pixelated 2.5D open world that’s as brutal as the desktop version. In this game, the player is dumped on shore with nothing. They must scavenge around for food, water, and weapons while avoiding attack. It’s the kind of game where the goal is to stay alive as long as possible. But that will never be very long. It’s oddly free and seems to only have an ad on the main screen — for now.

Pewter Games has brought their charming point and click adventure The Little Acre to iOS. It’s an amazingly beautiful animated adventure set in a sort of hybrid magical / alien world. A great all ages adventure and very fun.

We’d like to thank our sponsor for this week, The House of Da Vinci by Blue Brain Games. There’s a reason Leonardo Da Vinci is the only renaissance figure who routinely shows up in video games you know. With his remarkable inventiveness and genius for creative problem-solving, Da Vinci was a gamer through and through. He was just born 500 hundred years too soon. Thankfully, there are studios like Blue Brain Games to bring him to life in videogame form. The House of Da Vinci, which comes to us courtesy of a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign, is a puzzler that seeks to channel the artistry and innovation of its title character.

You play as one of Da Vinci’s more promising apprentices, and you have the challenging task of trying to work out where the hell he’s gone. Was he assassinated by the church? Who knows. Has he quietly gone into a retirement? Perhaps. Did he accidentally invent a shrink ray and shrink himself down to the size of an dustmite? Probably not. Da Vinci’s workshop looks beautiful, thanks to some impressive 3D graphics, and the in-game environment is crammed with all the elaborate machines and crazy inventions you’d expect to find in the workplace of a renaissance genius.(more…)

Poly Bridge is out now on iOS, and it’s good to have it! It’s a great game and many seem to agree that it’s the best bridge builder game available. But the iOS versions, so far, is missing the sandbox mode. I would hope that it’s coming soon in an update. If you are all interested in physics puzzlers, grab this one. (Note: the video is for the PC version, I have yet to see a trailer for the mobile version, the developer Dry Cactus isn’t that great at marketing…)

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